Pick Your Recruits Armageddon is a remake of zookeeper's PYR. The main concept is, instead of having factions, you can customize your own team before each game. In the first turn, your leader is stoned, you have 100 gold and and you can use the recruit list to select the units you wish to play with. These chosen units doesn't appear in the castle yet. Then, the next turn starts with the normal amount of gold, and you get the selected units on your list. In short, that's all.However, while zookeeper strived to keep it simple and fun, i was aiming to make it as complex as possible - without unnecessary modifications.Note: This era is no way associated with the "Extended Era"! PYRA Extended just stands for the more units to select from.

What are the necessary modifications? What's the difference between zookeeper's PYR and this one?

As zookeeper already suggested in the topic of his version, everyone can change the gold costs or add extra beasts with basic wml knowledge. Actually, that's what happened.

Number of units

The era offers two gamemode for unit selection. PYR Standard contains the well-known 42 units from default multiplayer, while PYR Extended has additional 61 (so 103 in sum) which are taken from the core campaigns, and some level 2s for leaders. Extended is recommended mainly for experienced players, because the number of combinations can be quite disturbing And there's a Quick version for both gamemode with pre-made teams to practice and get some idea for an own team... or, just because you want to skip the long procedure of selection. Since I felt quick mode caused more confusion and mess than the usage it had, i removed Quick version of the gamemodes from v1.1 .

Price of units

In default multiplayer wesnoth, factions are balanced to factions, not units to units. Separating each unit will cause some of them being overpriced (f.e. Mage, Wolf Rider), others became too cheap (like the Cavalryman and Walking Corpse). Changing the prices was inevitable for a serious game. I tried my best to balance every unit's price to make each of them useful. Some of them are universal, others might be very special, but i feel i reached the desired state.If anyone thinks some inbalance were left within the gold costs, and able to give a proper explanation why it is, then the advice is welcome.

Stats of units

In certain cases the statistics of units were changed. The reasons for this are mostly 1) similarity to another unit(s) 2) common sense (like the Dwarvish Miner which had the human zombie variation)

I wanted to avoid this step whenever it was possible, so if you are familiar with the unit from the campaigns, it won't confuse you. In any case, you will find a changelog in the folder of the era for further information about changes in the parameters.Note: none of the Standard units' stats have been modified!

Right click menu

There's a right click menu for some special options.

Credits: all the people who contributed in making this era, directly or indirectly.Recruitment settings: here you can ask for a race specific recruit list to help you finding the required unit. This could be very handy for non-english players. You can switch back to the complete list as well. Also you can clear your previous choices if you made a mistake.Ranged attack: some units are able to shoot through multiple hexagons. Select your multihex-attacking unit and right-click on the target. The victim can shoot back only if it also has such a ranged and it reaches the attacker. Normal ranged attacks won't work, even if standing next to the attacker.

No quick leaders

I decided to erase this feature to prevent boosted Dwarvish Steelclads/Thunderguards/Runesmiths roaming around the map. There are plenty other potential leaders to choose, and some of them wouldn't even worth to consider if this is enabled.

What are the known problems?

You'll find the known bugs and future plans in the todo.txt in the main folder of the era.

Who should you play this era?

This era is recommended for everyone who likes complex tactical battles, loves being lost in the details, bored of regular multiplayer or complaining often about faction balance.

Spoiler:

New masked dwarves.Two of the Orcish Shamans got new abilities.Reduced Thug's hitpoints to 30.Corrected Dust Devil's dust recuperation ability.Stun attack of Merman Brawler has been fixed.Death Squire and Death Knight gained Submerge ability.New Elemental trait.Missing Great Wolf sprite has been fixed.Fixed Dwarvish Miner's attack animation.New attack icons, portraits and unit descriptions.Tidied some parts of the WML.

2011. apr 07.

Modified some unit's stats.Added the most balanced 1v1 maps to play in this era.Added a possibility to get every unit's stats.Added missing Merman Hoplite.Bone Knight's resistances are corrected now.From now an Elvish Ranger represents the wood elves.Minor file cleanings happened.

2010. dec 27.

Drake Arbiter was named as Drake Blademaster; now this is fixed.Multihex attack overlay is implemented; if you want to select a multihex-ranged unit, a cross appears in its upright corner, just like in Ranged Era. Credits to mich!Watch Tower taken only 1 damage if attacked by a multihex attack, fixed to do normal amount of damage. Also its six 0 resistances appear from now in help as they should.After gold reset, the game gives back the complete unit list.

2010. dec 02.

Version 1.0.1 is out with its new name. Unfortunately i had to re-upload it to reach the effect. (thanks for the previous 220 download anyway, you won't be forgotten)From now era is required to join Standard to prevent the ingame drop.Mounted Warrior's advancement bug is fixed.Desert Archer line can be female now.Fixed the glitch that the unit's female variants missed the PYR tag, or their name wasn't female (Dark Adept, Desert Archer, Desert Hunter, Elvish Archer, Elvish Shaman, Mage, Mermaid Initiate, Nagini Fighter, Thief lines).

2010. nov 25.

Version 1.0.0 is now available on the add-on server.

Have fun!

Last edited by Horus2 on September 15th, 2011, 4:04 pm, edited 9 times in total.

I have a suggerence, It must be more balanced to have a determinated count of units in your list than for a count of gold. If you have 100 gold to pick your unit's list by the unit's price, then the players will try to pick those units what are cheaper and good like the spearman, Elvish Fighter, Invaders, Dwarvish fighters and others and they must not try to recruit auxilary units like the mages.

6 units in your list of recruits likes me more balanced than picking your list with 100 of gold to buy them in the 1st turn.

A questionBoth players needs this file or both players must have atleast Extended Era?

I have a suggerence, It must be more balanced to have a determinated count of units in your list than for a count of gold. If you have 100 gold to pick your unit's list by the unit's price, then the players will try to pick those units what are cheaper and good like the spearman, Elvish Fighter, Invaders, Dwarvish fighters and others and they must not try to recruit auxilary units like the mages.

6 units in your list of recruits likes me more balanced than picking your list with 100 of gold to buy them in the 1st turn.

A questionBoth players needs this file or both players must have atleast Extended Era?

I disagree, rather the opposite is true.Unit limitation would force players to choose expensive units, because they have more "feature" in one, thus covering a bigger size of tactical possibility which is essential; while gold limitation means some kind of unit limit as well.Units with higher value (like Desert Hunter, Dwarvish Guardsman, Dwarvish Scout) excels at protecting villages from grunt rushes you mentioned. Brute force did a great job with a unit limit of 5 in zookeeper's era, but the concept wouldn't benefit much from +2 core fighters (100 gold often equals to 7 units), while the other player can allow something good against it from this extra two.

An Answer:Unfortunately, both player must have this era. Even the Standard version requires it because of the altered prices.

Not truth all, price does not mean quality, much people preffer a spearman than a heavy infantry. Why this happens? the heavy infantry is expensive, slow and with some magic vulnerability (-10% res to cold and -10% res to fire); the spearman is cheap and effective, it's also great for it's low price. The spearman can have less resistances, but haves a ranged atack what is useful to earn aditional xps without any risk, it has first strike and it's not slow; the heavy infantry has nice resistances to blade and pierce, but it deals almost the same dammage than a spearman, 11-2 for a unit what costs 19 coins is weak.

I think you must NOT rush with complementary units (cheaper and or expensive units) or with mainline units (12-17 priced units frequently) those are the reassons why I say this

1.- The risk of picking low and expensive units (with limited count of gold) is if you have low recruits, your recruit list must be a bit incomeplete, if an opponent has the recruit what can use your failure, then he can do an spamming of that unit and own you. If you have a limited count of recruits, if you buy expensive units the quantity is not in your favour, frequently the very expensive units are made to be recruited in low quantity and for that reasson they must not be a mainline at all (like the gryphon rider, the wose and others) those expensive units are complementary units NOT mainline units and if you don't have mainline units (spearmen, elvish fighters, dwarvish fighters, archers, Invaders and others) you may pay for your misstake because the expensive units are to cancelate a strategy like the wose when your opponent is loyalist he recruits only heavy infantries and spearmen, then your woses can crush them without anything to fear, or the horseman when your opponent becomes anoying with his/her ranged units the horseman's charge can be a headache for your opponent.

Cheap units are mainly to swarm your enemy againist a determinated unit. Like the gobling spamming when your opponent has some dark adepts, the goblings can deal almost the same dammage to a Dark adept than a spearman but with lower hp and price, but this doesn't matter much if you protect well the gobling after killing an adept.

2.- The problem of picking much mainline units is you need to have some complementary units too, the complementary units can work awesome in determinated momments, like the mages when you are sorrounded by saurians, woses and undeads. Mainline units are awesome to keep well a position, but they are also ineficent to do some things like the capturing of villages and secundary effects (poison, slowing). Complementary units helps a lot a mainline, many times in low quantity because you may not need more of them in your build.

Edit: I'm downloading this from the add ons server, I want to test it; I have waited many days for someone has this idea =)

IPS: you missed an important point. Heavy Infantryman is only 18 gold in this era, because as you mentioned, HI is weaker for his original cost than his spear-wielding colleague. That's the main purpose of the entire era; to make every unit useful.

I'm not happy with "kfki" in the title of the era. It is an acronym of the hungarian wesnoth server, and used to distinguish our PYR from the original. Now, as everyone can download and play it, i find it a little awkward.

I ask you to come up with a more striking title. Thou who find a better word will have the honor to name my era.

Hi everyone:) Nice to see you guys are like our era. When Horus came out with the idea the only reason why I started to help him was my boredom. And now, it been downloaded more than 80 times now, and it's just the first day!:D (Well, not extactly the first, as basically every hungarian players had at least a look at the beta.) Anyways, here are my answers for the first two reported bugs:

Report: After gold reset, the game doesn't give back the complete unit list; you have to reselect it manually.Answer: Problem found, will be fixed in the next update.

R: After using a right-click menu option, undo possibility disappears. A: This is a way more complicated problem, thus I can't tell how much time it will take to fix it, but I know why is it, so do not fear, I'm on it.

PS. Sorry for the possible grammar errors. I always had problems with English tenses.

I'm not happy with "kfki" in the title of the era. It is an acronym of the hungarian wesnoth server, and used to distinguish our PYR from the original. Now, as everyone can download and play it, i find it a little awkward.

I ask you to come up with a more striking title. Thou who find a better word will have the honor to name my era.

P.S: As an idea, maybe code it into a PYR campaign? Scenario 1 you choose your recruits for the campaign, and then you get to add units from a selection as it goes on? It'd be a first

Thought about it, yet I never mentioned it to Horus. It's his era by every means, and I don't want to give job to myself. Newly I am very busy, as working on many things in the same time. Also the idea has some disadvantages, for example, if you choose a very good group for the actual map, it can be completely useless in the next map. And if one of the players would be able to choose the next map rather than the random generator, the choosing player would get obvious advantages against his/her enemies. Yes, you could use a group of flexible units, but that would make most of the avaible unit types unused, not being capable for the campaign. So no, I don't think we're going to create such campaign.

Also, if you mean the whole campaign could go on on the same map, yes, that would be a hell good idea Well, in my opinion, but I'm not the one who decides what are we going to do.

Last edited by Zaton on December 1st, 2010, 2:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Like the era . I think it beats zookeepers, but maybe thats just me. Anyway, good job, and happy coding!

P.S: As an idea, maybe code it into a PYR campaign? Scenario 1 you choose your recruits for the campaign, and then you get to add units from a selection as it goes on? It'd be a first

Thanks. Actually, all of these possibilities are considered already. The main problem with these that they don't go well next to Extended or Standard. So, if no vote against Armageddon, i'll probably use this one.

The idea of PYR campaigns sounds good at first. However i agree with Zaton when he said your chosed ones can be useless in later. Situations which could't been overseen are already the weakest part of the campaigns in general, and this would make the problem more severe. There are possibilities of course to avoid this, like gradual recruit pick or single scenarios only, but right now the maintaining and balancing of the multiplayer is the only goal i'm aiming for.But anyone can write such a campaign... if he can write a story for it and explain why all the races are fighting side by side for your cause.

Here to report balance issues/general feedback:Apprentice mage is stronger than the shadow mage (in everything except exp , and thats only 1 point difference) but costs less-maybe make them the same stats exactly except for neutral/chaotic?Fighter/ess is weaker than spearman, but costs more. Give him/her leadership? There's plenty of rank 0 units they can affect.Giant rat is useless-I suggest giving it a unique AMLA.Watch tower takes up a castle space for a relatively little bonus. I suggest allowing it 1 MP for the turn after (or maybe even the) ToR. Also, state in an ability (maybe a dummy) that it can shoot 4 hex not in the description. And as I'm guessing you know, that ability dosn't work. Look at the code in ranged era, and copy it across for the tower.Dust Devil is too feeble for its cost. Make it 6-7 gold cheaper. Also, long term, a standing anim (even if its only 1 more pic) to make it look like a tornado spinning would be nice.Crab man needs to be a 6-3 not a 9-2. Or possibly a 8-3 but with a defect. (swarm?)

These are all the ones I noticed in the game I played (although you may disagree with me on some), but there is probably loads more out there. It's inevitable, when you have a big compilation like this.

Kapoue_II wrote:Apprentice mage is stronger than the shadow mage (in everything except exp , and thats only 1 point difference) but costs less-maybe make them the same stats exactly except for neutral/chaotic?

Look better at the stats before you state such thing. Rogue Mage has +1 melee and +1 ranged damage...

You missed the point what happens when he/she levels up. And how fast they can do it. Actually it can be that they are underpriced... well it's not your fault since lvl2s are unknown for you. I guess i should add a feature to let the Help screen show every unit.

Giant Rat is not for attack: it is for filling gaps, holding villages against scouts (for 1 turn) or force the enemy to bad terrain. I have a fear that 4 gold price would allow it to spam as a meatwall too effectively. But on the other hand Ruffians serve this purpose better, so i might have to rethink it.

Kapoue_II wrote:Watch tower takes up a castle space for a relatively little bonus. I suggest allowing it 1 MP for the turn after (or maybe even the) ToR. Also, state in an ability (maybe a dummy) that it can shoot 4 hex not in the description. And as I'm guessing you know, that ability dosn't work. Look at the code in ranged era, and copy it across for the tower.

It works. Read the first comment to know how.

Kapoue_II wrote:Dust Devil is too feeble for its cost. Make it 6-7 gold cheaper. Also, long term, a standing anim (even if its only 1 more pic) to make it look like a tornado spinning would be nice.

Dust Devil is an armored regenerating magic using ranged gryphon rider, and i'll prove it to anybody happily. You are not the first to doubt its cost, but beleive, with usually only 1 unit to kill it effectively, a DD can be a nightmare. It's not for spamming, though; one is enough.

Kapoue_II wrote:Crab man needs to be a 6-3 not a 9-2. Or possibly a 8-3 but with a defect. (swarm?)

No way. I won't mess up any original stats without a good reason. 9-2 is the UTBS default, and i borrowed the units from campaings. If an UMC uses other values, then so be it; but mine will remain the same as everybody (who played UTBS) knows it. Again, see first comment above.

IPS played the overpowered blockade's role while i was outnumbering him with light tactical units. At turn 10 i breached the line with a help of a redhead, but at the end i had to run away from the remaining tough guys. In the second arc and after recruiting some new commandos, i tried to outmaneuver the main army or make them move either side and then strike on the other. Then in the third part of the story, the united raging opposition chased my leader counter-clockwise around the mountain, but at every footstep my tacticians jumped onto their neck, thus eliminating the current key targets (and dying heroically) to slow the chase and let me win by village dominance. Or not, because it was unclear till the end who will remain alive.

I was thinking about the sand dusk, I feel it's overpriced and now I have more sure my rassons why I say this:

1.- It's really weak to cold. People very often picks dark adepts, rogue mage or augurs. Yeah they are low units, but the people like to much those units so it's hard to see a game without them. It's weak to fire and arcane too ... almost nobody plays without a kind of mage unit.

2.- Swarm in the ranged, when they are very wounded their mele is only useful. 5-2 magical mele is not bad but a grunt for 12 coins does it better and costs less than the half.

3.- When you buy them you make a smaller army due their price. If for a reasson one of this is trapped by 2 cheap units like orcish grunts then this sand dusk will not scape and perish when the mage units arrive.

I know it's high ressistances, but it's to defensive, 3-7 is nice exept when has swarm. I think this unit must cost 25 overall because the weakness to magic. 2 less coins in a price does give a chance to the players to test it once. It likes me a bit weird to 2 sand dusk costs almost the same than 3 calvaries, but the calvaryman has almost the same ressistances than the sand dusk and it costs 19 in your era; the calvaryman does not fly or regen a bit in the sand but a calvaryman is good too againist the sand dusk.

With that logic, you could even tell us to make skeletons cost less as the enemy's likely to have units with fire or impact attack. Seriously, you're thinking we should buff something for there are units capable to kill it easily? It costs that much because it is more useful than other units. We don't think it's some kind of Terminator. If played properly, the Dust Devil can be a great weapon in your hand. Not that I can use it properly. I just felt in my own skin when the better testers kicked me in the a* with it. When my mages arrived? They either just flew away or other units surrounded them. Do you want to trap them? I'd like to see someone who have reached the level of stupid when (s)he let die a unit at this prize with that ease, which is by the way has 8 movement points so it can see practically everything rounds before those even could touch it.And lastly, the swarm attack. In your example, you mentioned the grunts' melee attack. Like anybody would attack a grunt with melee when has ranged attacks. The D.D. is pretty fast, so it is more likely to hit it's opponent first. But let's just say we have a D.D. surrounded by two grunts at night. We also have, let's say, another unit or two on the grunts' team, a mage or archer for instance, without movement points, some hexes away. No other unit's close enough to reach them in two turns, or simply not interested in their fight. All of them are at maximum hp, and it's the grunt's turn. The grunts' attack is either 8-2 or 9-2 against our unlucky elemental, depending on their stats. Both of them attacks it, and if we assume that they hit it, by doing so they also significantly reduced it's ranged damage. In this case, the D.D. most likely dies in the next turn by the hands of the 3. or 4. unit, no matter how much damage the grunts suffered, as they can retreat, having nothing to worry about. Now, this would be a very unlikely event, not only having a D.D. completely at the grunts' mercy, but having the best conditions to kill it. And before these events could occur, you'd need a D.D. not being aware of the grunts position, nor having groupmates who could give it a helping hand. This is close to impossible. What I'm trying to say is if you managed to catch such a fast unit with cheapies, then it's either because it's owner wanted so/the above mentioned possesses the IQ of a caveful of infant trolls/or you have defeated all of the D.D.'s followers and sorrounded it in the same turn. You simply can't espect your opponent to send any of his/her units alone against more than 1 enemies, especially leaving it just standing, waiting for the blades to cut it in half. In a usual battle, a D.D. should take only one or two blows, and a 3-5/4 attack is still something that you should worry about. And there's still the the regenerating ability applying on both sand and dirt, what one should parlay at every opporturnity.

For the Cavalryman, you just said the whole thing yourself. It can't fly, have no magical or ranged attack, and can't regenerate, thus it is cheaper. I can't see a problem here.